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Nov 16, 2011 -- 6:57PM, Mand12 wrote:

One-handed weapons are very poor choices.  Given that you only have Light Shield as default proficiency, going 1h/Shield isn't worth it.  Go 2h or go home.  18 dex gets you 19 AC in defender mode without a shield.  Plenty good enough.

A 1-hander is actually competitive if you go with Temperate Lands, because you gain a +2 bonus to damage with it.  That's going to be slightly more damaging with 1[W] powers assuming a Bastard Sword/Fullblade comparison (for the +3 proficiency bonus), though the bigger damage dice of the 2-hander will come out ahead with 3+[W] powers.  Seeing as you'll probably be making more low [W] attacks even at higher levels (leader-granted MBAs, charging, Vengeful Guardian), the 1-hander might even have a slight edge.

In terms of defenses, the 2-hander (assuming Arid) takes Unarmored Agility whereas the Temperate guy takes Heavy Shield Proficiency.  Both will get you some of the best AC in the game.  Arid Polearm users might bump it further with Hafted Defense, but Temperate shield users will be taking Shield Specialization.  Because a non-Arid Berserker can't get Unarmored Agility, they'll either need to go sword and board or accept a lower (but still very respectable) AC. 

Nov 16, 2011 -- 6:57PM, Mand12 wrote:

Third, you claim that the full-Striker version is weaker than the existing Barbarian.  The only way it's weaker is that you don't get Feral Might.  But guess what?  Some of those don't even really add to the damage you do by all that much.  So going Berserker is about as bad as picking a less-than-optimal Feral Might option.  Not a huge loss. 

To be fair, you also lose out on Rampage.  Once you get an expanded critical range, this will start to be more important.  So that's 2 sources of free attacks (assuming a Rageblood, anyways), even if Rampage isn't going to be triggered all that often.  Rampage also costs most Barbarians a feat to give them the option of charging with it, becuase it sucks to kill a guy with a crit and have no one to attack with Rampage. 

Looking at it from a pure DPR standpoint, the pure striker Berserker is going to be weaker than an O-Barbarian.  But then again, if you're going to make a pure striker you probably don't want to go with the Berserker anyways.  That's not to say that a pure striker Berserker is a weak striker, it's just that an O-Barb fits the same concept and is slightly stronger in that role.

Nov 16, 2011 -- 7:06PM, Rancid_Rogue wrote:

In the meantime, the Berserker can easily bulk up his MBA, and add a d8 per tier to his reprisal attack, to the point that you can't really compare the build to a Knight in the way that some of this thread tries to do. Knight builds want the Monster to flail futilely at the Knight, such that 100% negation of attacks on the Knight's allies is a worthwhile build goal. The Berserker really wants the Monsters to attack his allies. They'll get dead a whole lot quicker that way. It's sort of defense by striking. The L12 build I posted on the other thread averages about 31 hits per defender OA, which is about 25% of the HPs of a L12 standard monster. That gives it real good odds of imposing the ultimate status effect -- dead -- as its attack negation.

That's a good way of putting it. 

It's also worth mentioning that it takes the Knight a while to build up his repertoire of tricks, but the Berserker is punishing via damage at all levels of play.  Since most play occurs at low levels, that's potentially a point in the Berserker's favor.  But you're right, despite the similar chassis of the two classes, they really do have different goals in combat (even if both will be utilizing slow + WSG).

Nov 16, 2011 -- 4:03PM, thespaceinvader wrote:

The potential racial pigeonholing I can see as an issue, but that's much more of an endemic 4e issue than anything specific to the Berserker.  I don't see it as a massive problem, however, since half-orcs have some solid support available for both roles.

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Is Str/Dex really that massive?  I can see some arguments for the Mul.  You lose 1 AC and Ref but gain 2 surges and Incredible Toughness.  You also gain access to Legacy of Stone which mitigates the problems of forced movement for the Defender Aura somewhat.  There's also all the additional Dwarven feat support (Dwarven Durability by boosting your healing surge value interacts well with Berserk Vitality and the Paragon Path utility power.)  Seems competetive if you want to focus more on the defending side of the equation.